The Girl You Left Behind

little?’
    ‘No, thank you. I’d just like to
     get on. I … I can only spare an hour.’ Where had that come from? I think
     half of me already wanted to leave.
    He tried to position me, to get me to put
     down my bag, to lean a little against the arm of the
chaise longue
. But I
     couldn’t. I felt humiliated without being able to say why. And as Monsieur
     Lefèvre worked, glancing to and from his easel, barely speaking, it slowly dawned
     on me that I did not feel admired and important, as I had secretly thought I might, but
     as if he saw straight through me. I had, it seemed, become a
thing
, a subject,
     of no more significance than the green bottle or the apples in the still-life canvas by
     the door.
    It was evident that he didn’t like it
     either. As the hour wore on, he seemed more and more dismayed, emitting little sounds of
     frustration. I sat as still as a statue, afraid that I was doing something wrong, but
     finally he said, ‘Mademoiselle, let’s finish. I’m not sure the
     charcoal gods are with me today.’
    I straightened with some relief, twisting my
     neck on my shoulders. ‘May I see?’
    The girl in the picture was me, all right,
     but I winced. She appeared as lifeless as a porcelain doll. She bore anexpression of grim fortitude and the stiff-backed primness of a
     maiden aunt. I tried not to show how crushed I felt. ‘I suspect I am not the model
     you hoped for.’
    ‘No. It’s not you,
     Mademoiselle.’ He shrugged. ‘I am … I am frustrated with
     myself.’
    ‘I could come again on Sunday, if you
     liked.’ I don’t know why I said it. It wasn’t as if I had enjoyed the
     experience.
    He smiled at me then. He had the kindest
     eyes. ‘That would be … very generous. I’m sure I’ll be able
     to do you justice on another occasion.’
    But Sunday was no better. I tried, I really
     did. I lay with my arm across the
chaise longue
, my body twisted like the
     reclining Aphrodite he showed me in a book, my skirt gathered in folds over my legs. I
     tried to relax and let my expression soften, but in that position my corset bit into my
     waist and a strand of hair kept slipping out of its pin so that the temptation to reach
     for it was almost overwhelming. It was a long and arduous couple of hours. Even before I
     saw the picture, I knew from Monsieur Lefèvre’s face that he was, once again,
     disappointed.
    This is me? I thought, staring at the
     grim-faced girl who was less Venus than a sour housekeeper checking the surfaces of her
     soft furnishings for dust.
    This time I think he even felt sorry for me.
     I suspect I was the plainest model he had ever had. ‘It is not you,
     Mademoiselle,’ he insisted. ‘Sometimes … it takes a while to get
     the true essence of a person.’
    But that was the thing that upset me most. I
     was afraid he had already got it.
    It was Bastille Day when I saw him again. I
     was making my way through the packed streets of the Latin Quarter, passing under the
     huge red, white and blue flags and fragrant wreaths that hung from the windows, weaving
     in and out of the crowds that stood to watch the soldiers marching past, their rifles
     cocked over their shoulders.
    The whole of Paris was celebrating. I am
     usually content with my own company, but that day I was restless, oddly lonely. When I
     reached the Panthéon I stopped: before me rue Soufflot had become a whirling mass
     of bodies, its normally grey length now packed with people dancing, the women in their
     long skirts and broad-brimmed hats, the band outside the Café Léon. They moved
     in graceful circles, stood at the edge of the pavement observing each other and
     chatting, as if the street were a ballroom.
    And then there he was, sitting in the middle
     of it all, a brightly coloured scarf around his neck. Mistinguett, her associates
     hovering around her, rested a hand possessively on his shoulder as she said something
     that made him roar with laughter.
    I stared at them in astonishment. And then,
     perhaps compelled by the intensity of my gaze, he looked round and saw me. I ducked
     swiftly into a doorway and set off in the opposite direction, my cheeks flaming. I dived
     in and out of the dancing couples, my clogs clattering on the cobbles. But within
     seconds his voice was booming behind me.
    ‘Mademoiselle!’
    I could not ignore him. I turned. He looked
     for a moment as if he were about to embrace me, butsomething in my
     demeanour must have stopped